Columns

Malaria just doesn’t get respect. Until, that is, someone catches it.

It is a wicked disease which infects between 300- and 550-million people (yes, that is one-third to one-half billion people — about 10 times the number of those suffering from AIDS) and kills between one to three million annually. It is spread by mosquitoes and is found through much of the world but primarily occurs in the tropics.

There are four species of this parasite which affect mankind. The most dangerous is called Falciparum, but the most common form is called Vivax, which can hibernate for months...

by Ed Kinney

From Aleppo, Syria, to the Iraqi border

Currently, the image of the Euphrates River is one of death and destruction as it flows slowly through the Baghdad area of Iraq. Lest we forget, hundreds of villages both in its historical past and still today have depended upon its waters as it travels from its origin in Turkey through Syria and into Iraq. As populations swell, demands on the Euphrates will only increase, leading to potential conflicts between these three countries.

Shortly before I began writing this column in 1999, my wife, Moreen, and I drove...

by Julie Skurdenis

Last month I described three Guaraní-Jesuit missions my husband, Paul, and I visited in Argentina in August ’07. This month I’d like to describe two more, these in Paraguay, that we visited on a separate trip several weeks after seeing the Argentinian missions.

Jesus Mission

The first of the two Paraguayan missions we visited, Jesus de Tavarangüe, was founded in 1685. Located 25 miles north of Encarnación, Jesus Mission followed the usual Jesuit mission layout with a church at the southern end of a plaza with adjoining patios, one with classrooms...